USA Dot Com is a blog covering politics and government from a conservative Christian perspective. Verne Strickland is a 50-year veteran of investigative journalism. This blog offers a take-no-prisoners style with a modicum of biting satire. Verne and his wife of 55 years, Durrene, live in Wilmington, NC.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Sound in the Mulberry Trees -- Watch and Listen for God's Signal to You.

There is an old mulberry tree outside my window. Its trunk and limbs are thick and craggy, and it is magnificent in summer with its rich plumage of deep green leaves.

It is a welcome sight always, and has had special significance to me since I read in God’s Word the story of David and the mulberry tree.

Here is the story of the mulberry tree, and its place in the life of David. There is a message here for each of us – wait on the Lord. Watch for the signs. He will tell you when the time is right for you to act as you are directed.

Each time I walk outside my door in downtown Wilmington, I look at the top of my mulberry tree. And it seems to bring me closer to God.

Sometimes it is still. Mute. At other times it is rustling and even bending. But knowing of its place in the Holy Bible, and how it held a special message for David, I always feel a personal connection to that wonderful old mulberry by my fence. It will be here after I'm gone.

You don’t need a mulberry tree to put you in touch with the Lord’s calling. He will speak to you in other ways specific to you. if you truly consult Him. I pray that you will.

The Sound in the Mulberry Trees

From a sermon by C. H. SPURGEON. (1834-1892)

"When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then thou shall bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines."—2 Samuel 5:24.

David had just fought the Philistines in this very valley, and gained a signal victory, so that he said, "the Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters." The Philistines had come up in great hosts, and had brought their gods with them, that like Israel, when the ark of the Lord was brought into their midst, they might feel quite sure of victory.

However, by the help of God David easily put them to rout, burned their images in the fire, and obtained a glorious victory over them. Note, however, that when they came a second time against David, David did not go up to fight them, without enquiring of the Lord. Once he had been victorious; he might have said, as many of us have said, in fact, in other cases—"I shall be victorious again; I may rest quite sure that if I have triumphed once I shall triumph yet again. Wherefore should I go and seek at the Lord's hands?"

Not so, now David. He had gained one victory by the strength of the Lord; he would not venture upon another, until he had ensured the same. He went and asked the sacred oracle, "Shall I go up against them?" and when he was informed that he was not immediately to march against them, but to encamp so as to surprise them at the mulberry-trees, he did not demur a single moment to the mandate of God; and when he was bidden to wait until he should hear the sound in the tops of the mulberry-trees before he went to fight, he was not in an ill haste to rush to battle at once, but he tarried until the mulberry-trees began to sing at the top by reason of the wind that rushed along the leaves.

He would wait until God's sign was given; he said, "I will not lift my spear nor my hand till God hath bidden me do it, lest I should go to war at my own charges, and lose all I have obtained."

My brethren, let us learn from David to take no steps without God. I speak to none but those who are already Christians,—I beseech him not to venture until he has sought counsel of God, and unless he has a firm conviction that he is doing it not merely for his own advantage but to help him in serving his God the better.

Thus David was not to go to battle, until he heard a sound of a rustling in the tops of the mulberry trees. There was a calm, perhaps; and God's order to David was, "You are not to begin to fight until the wind begins rustling through the tops of the mulberry trees."

So my remark is only this—that there are certain signs which ought to be indications to us of certain duties. I shall use the verse in this way. First, there are certain special duties, which are not duties to everybody, but only to some people. If we wish to know whether we are to perform these duties, we must seek signs concerning them, and not go and rush into a duty to which we are not called, unless we get a sign, even as David got the rustling among the mulberry leaves.

So that when we see some sign of God's Holy Spirit being in motion, or some other signs, these are seasons when we ought to be more than ever active, and more than ever earnest in the service of our Master.

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